MULTIPLE MEETING OF BEHAVIOR - CONSTRUING ACTIONS IN TERMS OF COMPETENCE OR MORALITY

Multiplicity of behavior features gives rise to its different interpre tations (in addition to behavior vagueness and ambiguity typically stu died in social cognition research). Particularly, identical actions ar e construable both in moral and competence-related categories due to d istinct behavioral features underlying each of these interpretations. It was hypothesized that the two construals are alternatively used by the perceiver. Because of perspective-dependent differences in accessi bility and applicability of competence and moral categories, it was hy pothesized that actors interpret their own behavior in competence term s, whereas observers interpret it in moral categories, and that within the actor perspective, competence construal is used to a higher degre e by male than female perceivers, but the opposite is true for moral c onstrual. These hypotheses were supported in Study 1, where 115 studen ts interpreted identical actions (encodable both in competence and mor al terms) from the actor or the observer perspective, and in Study 2, where 6 5 students recollected and interpreted real-life episodes that had led them to strong evaluations either of themselves or other pers ons.